


Vorberg's Lament

by Philomytha



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Bujold
Genre: 100-1000 Words, Gen, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-02
Updated: 2010-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-06 23:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/pseuds/Philomytha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vorberg makes up his mind (missing scene from <em>Memory</em>).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vorberg's Lament

The Vors are failing. Not all at once, not dramatically, but you don't get into ImpSec without being able to read the signs of the times, not under Chief Illyan. Though he can't read them himself now. But we'll look after him. You can't rely on the Vors for that these days.

I've been in there with him every night for two weeks. It's enough to make you cry. Or run away. But in ImpSec we don't cry and we don't run away. We follow the example our chief sets, and we obey him even to death. But I've failed him. Or someone has.

The Vors are failing, but the Vorkosigans are different, or so I always believed. But perhaps his off-worlder mother didn't teach Lord Vorkosigan his duty. My father always said she was dangerous. Illyan - well, if he felt anything for anyone, it was for the Vorkosigans. He was their liegeman. I was the courier officer who brought him the news of Count Vorkosigan's heart trouble. Just for a moment, you'd have thought the world had ended from the look on his face.

I thought the Vorkosigans would be equally loyal. Surely the Count would be. But he's on Sergyar and it's the young lord Illyan wants. When he shouts names in the night - well, those are the worst times. Worst of all when he shouts for people who have been dead thirty years. I'm not superstitious, but in the dark, in ImpSec, hearing him cry out for Captain Negri to come at once ... you look over your shoulder, I can tell you.

And Lord Vorkosigan was ImpSec as well. ImpSec look after their own. You'd think that out on a medical himself, he'd have some care for his father's liegeman now that he's ill. But he never comes. And sometimes Illyan understands that he hasn't come, that I've tried and tried to send for him and Lord Vorkosigan refuses to come. Then he looks like he did when I told him about the Count.

Duelling is illegal now and has been for years. A Vorkosigan wouldn't duel. Otherwise I'd go to him, damn that he's a lord and I'm just a lieutenant with a bad leg, and I'd challenge him, for what he's done to the chief. Someone has to tell him that it still means something to be a Vor.


End file.
